State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are publicly owned entities established by governments as separate legal vehicles to provide certain goods and services or to earn revenue. SOEs control key sectors of the economy such as energy, agriculture, trade, transport and manufacturing. Over the years most SOEs in Kenya have been performing dismally. This poor performance has been attributed to be one of the causes for the country’s economic decline due to the fiscal burden cash strapped SOEs place on the national treasury. Further, SOEs have been involved in major corporate scandals and have been characterized as highly inefficient and unprofitable. The extant literature on SOEs attributes these challenges to a lack managerial of autonomy from the government and inefficient boards amongst other factors. However, these assertions are premised on untested generalizations and selective experience. It is this gap that this study seeks to fill by conducting an empirical study of 47 Kenyan SOEs to determine the correlational between managerial autonomy and their financial performance. It also empirically focuses on different variables of SOEs boards with a view of wholesomely trying to find out if they associate with performance as claimed. The key source of information is the SOEs’ annual reports. The study employs both qualitative and quantitative statistical analysis techniques. The results of the study seem to suggest that managerial autonomy has a positive effect on the performance of SOEs. It finds that an increase in the number of outside directors in SOE board size has a negative, significant effect on their performance. The size of a SOE has a positive, significant effect with performance. An increase in the ratio of directors with graduate degrees to board size has a surprisingly negative significant effect on performance. An increase in the ratio of institutional directors on the boards has positive significant effect on performance. To my knowledge, this is the first study in Kenya that empirically examines the correlation between SOEs performance and the number of government representatives on their boards. It is also a first in empirically examining the correlations between institutional directors, and board members educational and work experience with SOEs’ performance.